


we who boldly lay claim to our own

by jaldon



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Cad and Fjord are mentioned they just dont speak, Fix-It of Sorts, Flowers, Reunions, background beaujester - Freeform, even if it becomes not canon in a week, listen ep 69 was WAY to sad so i had to heal myself a little with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 07:25:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19694776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaldon/pseuds/jaldon
Summary: Later, after they have Yasha tied up, she doesn’t stop snarling at them and pulling at her bonds. And her eyes: they’re so full of hatred that Beau can’t bear to look into them. The purple one is almost red with rage, the blue one is shining in a way that makes Beau feel like making eye contact would send electricity coursing into her heart.





	we who boldly lay claim to our own

**Author's Note:**

> episode 69 (nice) literally destroyed me as a yasha stan so i had to write something to make it a little better. i know this is gonna be non canon compliant next week but thats okay. anyways have fun suffering w me and thanks to havisha for beta reading this.
> 
> the titled is from clemency for the wizard king which is the MOST mighty nein song ever please listen to it.

It’s weeks before the Mighty Nein reunite with Yasha, and as far as things go it’s not much of a reunion. In fact, it’s probably one of Beau’s least favorite Yasha reunions, the other being after the Iron Shepherds. Yasha’s face when she had awoken to the news of Molly’s death is imprinted in deep Beau’s mind, and Yasha’s face now isn’t much better. 

For one thing, they’re fighting against her, and while they’ve grown in her absence so has she. She’s less afraid now, striking out where she used to hold back. And when her wings come out mid-battle they’re darker and more withered than they’ve ever been. Fjord is right up against her, falchion and greatsword sending sparks flying. When Yasha’s eyes darken he cowers away and Yasha slashes across his chest, blood spraying all over her face. It doesn’t interrupt her eerie grin, and Beau can’t help but be terrified. 

She’s not even sure who she’s terrified for. 

For another thing, she doesn’t seem to recognize them, or at least not in the way they want her to. Her smile is vicious, taunting. Her face is cold. Even in the midst of Yasha’s rages she had never been this distant. 

“Yasha,” Beau says as she gets up close to her to attempt a stunning strike, “We’re your friends.” She pauses, looking for a glimpse of the tenderness that used to be so obvious in her friend’s eyes. 

For a moment, Yasha’s face clears into an expression of confusion, and Beau thinks she might have broken through. _Maybe this is what we needed_ , she hopes silently, _to talk to her and remind her of what Obann took_. 

But of course it’s not that simple, and as Yasha’s eyes clear up she grabs Beau’s arm and twists it, causing Beau to grunt in pain. “No,” Yasha says coldly, “you killed my friend.” 

Even later, after they have her tied up, she doesn’t stop snarling at them and pulling at her bonds. And her eyes: they’re so full of hatred that Beau can’t bear to look into them. The purple one is almost red with rage, the blue one is shining in a way that makes Beau feel like making eye contact would send electricity coursing into her heart. 

They try talking to her: all together at first and then one at a time, hoping, praying that somehow they’ll get to her or somehow make a dent in Obann’s magic. Nothing seems to work, though, not Caleb’s quiet reasoning or Jester’s tearful pleading or Fjords confusion or Caduceus’ strength or Nott’s sympathy or Beau’s anger. One by one they try, and one by one they fail, and all together they slowly lose hope.

Even when they leave her at one end of their camp, Caduceus and Nott looking warily from a few yards away, Beau and Jester can still hear Yasha straining, grunting, animalistic in her desire to escape and attack them all. 

No one’s fighting, but Yasha still has the rage of the middle of a battle. 

“Why is she like this?” Jester asks, her voice so melancholy that Beau has the urge to pull the other woman towards her. “I mean, it’s like she doesn’t even recognize us, even.” 

“We’ll fix it,” Beau says automatically, because that’s what they do. Fix things. But with this, Beau means it more than she’s meant anything, because it’s her, because it’s Yasha. They have to fix Yasha-- the restoration spells haven’t worked and distance from the Laughing Hand hasn’t either, but Beau is certain that there’s a way. There has to be. 

Jester’s shoulders heave, and now Beau _does_ pull her into a hug. She rubs her shaking shoulders and they wait out the storm of sadness together. 

“I just don’t get it,” Jester finally replies. “I thought that getting her back would make her better, so why does she still hate us?” 

Beau doesn’t really have an answer for that, so instead she runs her hand through Jester’s hair and thinks _it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay_. 

***

That night, Beau and Jester take watch together, just like they have most nights since they lost Yasha. It’s become a habit, but it’s also a necessity-- Jessie states that she can’t sleep without Beau next to her, and although Beau hasn’t said it out loud the reciprocal is also true. 

(The first night they had tried, Jester had woken up screaming. She hadn’t gone back to sleep but had laid there silently, and when it came time for Beau’s watch she took it with her. Quietly, she told Beau about her dreams: manacles with runes for sleep, rusted hooks, a gaping mouth full of teeth, a dark cavern that echoed with screams.)

They’re sitting there by the fire, Beau’s head on Jester’s shoulder, Jester tracing lazy patterns of hearts and circles on Beau’s arms, relaxed as they can be on watch, when Yasha speaks. 

“Why have you not killed me yet?” She says, and her voice is cracked and broken and harsher than their Yasha’s ever was but it’s undeniably hers, and it’s the first non-threat they’ve actually heard her say since before the tomb. Months have past since they lost Yasha, and Beau aches with the loneliness of it. 

According to Caleb and Nott, Yasha hadn’t spoken at all during their watch. Instead, she had tried to escape by expanding her skeletal wings. It hadn’t worked, but darkness had pooled around her and it had given the pair quite a fright. It ended with a black eye for Caleb, but other than that everyone else was unharmed. And Beau has to admit it’s a pretty neat trick. 

“Yasha, we would never kill you,” Jester says, and then smaller, more for herself than for Yasha, “we shouldn’t have left you.” 

“I would have no qualms about killing you,” Yasha says, as if that’s supposed to convince them to murder her rather than try harder to find a cure. Her voice is as empty as she’s claiming her heart is, and Beau almost wishes her heart was the same way. 

On a whim, Beau says, “Really?” 

Yasha scowls at her. 

“I don’t think you want to kill any of us,” Beau continues. Yasha’s eyes bore into hers. “I know you’re still in there, Yasha.” 

“I never even knew you,” Yasha says. “But I should have known what you were capable of.”

“He wasn’t your friend,” Beau replies. “And we didn’t do anything that you in your right mind wouldn’t have done.” 

“We love you very much, Yasha,” Jester adds, and Beau could swear she sees tears welling up in the corner of Yasha’s eyes. But before she can confirm it, Yasha turns away and lays down, and she doesn’t speak again for the rest of the watch. 

***

The morning doesn’t bring Yasha’s memories back or a solution to any of their problems, but it does bring a hot breakfast prepared by Caduceus and a little bit of clarity. 

In the daylight, Yasha looks both better and worse-- her wounds have healed up a little bit overnight and her eyes look less wild, settled slightly by sleep. However, the sun also provides the evidence of her weeks away from them: her skin is covered in fresh scars, she has deep bags under her eyes, has lost weight, and her hair is more tangled and matted than it ever was before. 

They’ve all changed over the past weeks, between the stress and the grief and the endless fighting. But there’s something about Yasha that’s so _other_ that Beau can barely believe it’s her-- it’s more like some poor mirror copy, one that never collected flowers or pet cats or shared a meal of spider legs with her friends. 

In a way, she reminds Beau of Yasha’s disguise in the City of Beasts. Outside of the city, Yasha had streaked mud across her face and mussed her hair up and taken a wild look to her eyes, and Beau remembers thinking that it had all seemed a bit too natural. Now, Yasha has returned to that feral, untamed state, and it doesn’t seem to be on purpose.

They eat all together, everyone a little bit apprehensive, but Yasha hasn’t lashed out at all yet so really everything is going great. 

After a quiet, rather awkward meal, Jester says, “Hey Yasha? Do you feel any different from yesterday?” 

“No,” Yasha says, but something about it sounds like her again. Her voice is gentler, it’s lost the harsh edge she spoke with even six hours ago. Maybe, Beau hopes, being back with them is already beginning to fix her. Her body is with them, maybe her mind will return too. 

She thinks, for a moment, of praying to the Stormlord. 

She wants to beg him for help, plead for him to fix his worshipper. She wants to yell that he wasn’t there when Yasha needed him so he has to be there now. But he’s a god and she’s a mortal and she banishes the thought from her mind. 

After another moment of quiet, Jester says, “Yasha, your hair is, like, super duper messy. Can I do it for you?” 

Yasha looks at her and then shrugs. It occurs to Beau to worry about Jester, but even with the knowlege of Yasha’s actions she can’t bring herself to accept that. It’s Jester, whom Yasha loves, whom she would never hurt. Except she has. 

She makes eye contact with Fjord, whose hand is at the hilt of his falchion, ready. Everyone knows that Jester can protect herself, and everyone wants to protect her anyways. Beau tiltls her head, then, as if to signal him _let her do this. Don’t attack yet. Wait for my call_. Fjord seems to understand-- they’ve always been tuned into each other this way.

Still, Yasha doesn’t move as Jester walks behind her, so Beau stops herself from going into some sort of defensive stance. 

As Jester combs through Yasha’s hair, some of the tension silently leeches out of her body. She’s less guarded, less ready to attack or be attacked at any moment. They all are, probably, because Jester just has that effect on people. She’s a work of art, their Jester, a woman so perfectly loving and loyal that it’s unnatural and so, so beautiful. 

“What’s this?” Jester says, holding something up. For a moment, Beau can’t tell. Then she realizes: it’s a white flower. Wilted, crumpled, crumbling, almost beyond recognition, but it’s the most Yasha thing. And it had been in her _hair_ , tucked into a braid behind her ear just in the way that Yasha used to do. 

Yasha looks, and shrugs, and Beau can’t tell why her expression remains blank: if she genuinely does not remember, or she doesn’t want to say, or the memory doesn’t matter to her at all. 

“Wait a minute,” Nott says from her place next to Jester. “That’s the flower that I gave you. Why did you keep it?” 

If it is truly that very same flower, it’s almost unnatural-- magical, even-- that it would still be recognizable as a flower. But there it is, a miracle of their own, and Beau feels the lightness of hope rising in her stomach, steadily making its way to her heart. 

Before it can get there, she pushes it down. She can’t afford the inevitable disappointment, not now. 

There’s a flash of something in Yasha’s eyes-- recognition or sadness or maybe even hope-- before it’s gone again. “I don’t know,” she says. 

And that seems to be it because Nott looks apprehensive and reluctant to press on. 

“You braided it into your hair,” Beau says, unwilling to give up this search for their friend. Because it was hard enough to find her body, and Beau thought that would be the end but it’s not, so she’s not going to stop until she gets back Yasha’s mind, too. “Why did you do that?” 

“It was important,” Yasha says, quiet and unsure, her voice so small. Then, as if predicting their next question, “I do not know why.” 

***

Later that day they untie the ropes around Yasha’s wrists and ankles and she does not run away or try to reach for her sword. She seems unable to explain it, just like she was with the flower, but this is important too and none of them are willing to let it go. 

Caleb volunteers to watch her, and although he is the weakest of them her assures Beau that he does not feel vulnerable right now. She tells him to keep a fireball ready anyways and makes sure to watch from a distance. 

The first thing he does is to summon Frumpkin and tell him to sit on Yasha’s lap. She seems perturbed, not so similar to how she used to be with the cat, but then she relaxes and starts to stroke his fur. 

“Are you not afraid of me?” Beau overhears Yasha saying to Caleb. “You know that I could kill you even without a weapon.” 

And Beau picture all the ways it could go wrong, sees Yasha snarling and strangling Caleb, sees her breaking his nose and crushing his bones and smashing his head against the ground.

“Ja, but you have not, and you are untied,” Caleb replies, “so I don’t really see you as a threat right now.” 

There’s a moment of silence broken only by a cat purring softly. 

“I do not know why I haven’t tried to hurt you yet,” she confesses. 

“Because you are a good person,” Caleb responds.

“No,” Yasha says, “I am not. We both know this.” 

And maybe because Caleb knows what is like to deny his own good nature, or maybe because he agrees, he does not push it. Instead, he responds, “Because you love us.” 

“I…” Yasha begins her denial of the fact but trails off, seemingly unwilling to say that she does not love them. The same feeling begins to stir in Beau’s chest again.Then, Yasha says, “I have to avenge him.” Her eyes glint with an attempt at hardness, at rage. 

Caleb leans in. He does not deny her this, he does not attempt to reason with her or tell her that there has been a spell cast on her. Instead, he simply says, “Perhaps. But not today.” 

***

They camp in a field that evening and before going to bed Jester and Nott venture out to search for flowers. They come back half an hour later with handfuls of blossoms, orange and pink and white and yellow and blue. As Caduceus makes dinner, the pair braids the flowers into Yasha’s hair, a crown of love and patience and longing and faith and thankfulness. 

“When the flowers wilt, we can replace them,” Beau hears Nott says. 

“We’re here for you, Yasha,” Jester adds. “We’ll help you. You deserve something that’s not wilted.” 

And it’s not perfect, but Beau’s always known that something is better than nothing, and whatever this is it’s a start. 

This, she can work with. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading my first fic in the cr fandom! please leave kudos or comments if you can it really encourages me to write!
> 
> you can find me on twitter liveblogging critrole episodes @starsbian and on tumblr generally being emo @kanes.


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